


Seal with it (or: The lowest form of humor, in action)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, Humor, I'm starting a petition for more SEAL puns in canon, M/M, Puns & Word Play, References to Canon-Typical Violence, so many puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 07:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16013138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “Yeah, Steve?” he asks. “This has your… seal of approval?”Chin groans. “Really, brah?”Danny could swear he sees the corners of Steve’s mouth twitch, ruining his perfect business face for a fraction of a second.Or: a full 2.6k offlirtingpuns. That’s it.





	Seal with it (or: The lowest form of humor, in action)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 1x12, where there’s this exchange:
> 
> _Kono: “After he was accused, the tunnel may have been sealed.”_
> 
> _Steve: “Well, we’ll unseal it.”_
> 
> Which I thought was HILARIOUS (Steve, unsealing something? the irony) but the show played it completely straight and missed out on a chance for an amazing pun. Which makes sense, because the episode is very tense and not the time for wordplay, but the idea got stuck in my head and then the puns just kept coming and that’s why this now exists. I’m not even a little bit sorry.
> 
> The timeframe for this story isn't extremely important, but it's set early in the series, because that's where I'm at right now. This is posted with many thanks to the wonderful [Meagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmeagan666/pseuds/missmeagan666), who made this possible by making it possible for me to watch H50. In case anyone remembers, I'm the person who [wrote McDanno fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839298) before she’d ever seen a single episode of the show, and life update: I'm watching it now! I just finished season 2 and everyone who said I would love it was so right, gosh. You're all smart people.
> 
> Hence, more fic! Extremely silly fic that borders on crack, but still, fic.

1.

Steve’s suicidal driving is of no use this time. When they get to the address Chin and Kono magicked up, they discover an abandoned warehouse, empty save for a small metal box. It’s placed so neatly on a table in the middle of the room that it has to have been left there expressly for them to find.

“Should we call the bomb squad?” Danny asks, eying it warily.

Steve doesn’t even dignify that with a response. He holsters his gun and picks up the box, inspecting it from different angles and giving it a shake. When nothing goes boom, Danny breathes out and moves to stand next to him.

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, but it’s sealed.”

Danny perks up. “Oh, you should like that, Steve.”

Steve frowns at him. “Why?”

“Sealed,” Danny says, waving his hands around as if that’s going to make Steve’s brain move any faster. “You’re a SEAL. You’re practically family.”

“Of this box?”

“Yeah. You’re sealmates.”

Steve actually rolls his eyes. “That’s terrible.”

“You’re terrible. You don’t even like puns.”

“I like puns just fine. Yours just aren’t any good.”

“Oh! Oh ho ho!” Danny points a finger in Steve’s direction. “I’ll take that as a challenge. Watch your back.”

Steve gives a little headshake and returns to trying to pry open the box with a pocket knife he got from one of his millions of cargo pants pockets. He does not look appropriately scared.

-

2.

The first time Danny takes Grace over to Steve’s house, she discovers Steve’s private beach. She doesn’t stop asking if they can please go for a swim until Danny reminds her that she doesn’t have her bathing suit with her. She doesn’t make that mistake a second time.

Danny stays on the beach, watching with mixed feelings as Steve and Grace splash through the water. On the one hand, he knows Steve would sooner shoot himself in the foot than allow any harm to come to Grace, and she’s probably in the safest hands possible after Danny’s own. On the other hand, Steve is a nutjob who might think launching little girls into the air would be a fun and responsible activity.

But Danny has no reason to worry, it seems, because the two emerge from the water after almost an hour, still entirely in one piece and without any brand new acrobatic routines to give Danny a heart attack. Grace sprints past him towards the house with only a cheery wave and a yell that she needs to pee. Steve comes to a stop at the beach chair Danny has dragged out here and occupied. He looms over Danny, grinning and dripping and throwing a shadow.

“You should come with us next time. She’s quite the water rat.”

“Did you just call my daughter a rat?” Danny has to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun so he can shoot his own glare up at Steve. Steve flicks his hand at him, causing a spray of droplets Danny resents.

“Rats are cute.”

“You know what? I’ll be the bigger man and let that slide, just this once.” 

Steve huffs, but he’s smiling when he plops down on the beach next to Danny’s chair. Danny shudders to think where Steve’s going to find sand later. “I’m impressed. You must be in a good mood.”

“I’m feeling magnanimous,” Danny says grandly. “You did just spend an hour entertaining my daughter.”

“That was entirely selfish. Gracie is great.”

Something swells in Danny’s chest. It should concern him that it’s probably his heart. “Seriously though, thanks,” he says, and means it, even if he can’t resist ruining it right after. “First you rent us a hotel room so she can go swim with dolphins, and now you’re letting her swim with a seal. You’re really making a little girl’s dreams come true here.”

Steve’s face goes all scrunched up in confusion for an embarrassingly long moment. He narrows his eyes at Danny. “Was that-”

Danny grins at him, extremely pleased with himself. “Yes.”

“Really? I expected worse when you made that threat. That was almost a full week ago.”

In truth, Danny might have forgotten about the puns for a bit. When they finally got the box open, it contained their kidnapping victim’s ear, which had ruined the mood. “That’s part of my deliberate strategy,” he lies. “I’ve been biding my time for the best moment to attack.”

“Right,” Steve says, so unconvinced that Danny _has_ to get him back for it. 

-

3.

He gets his chance the following Monday. They don’t even have a full hour at the office to catch up on last week’s paperwork before Steve receives the kind of call that has the rest of the team reach for their car keys before he even hangs up.

At the scene, two guys have been shot and their sister appears to be missing, so she’s either a third victim or their prime suspect for a double homicide. After they’ve questioned the neighbor who made the 911 call, they’re stuck until Kono has had time to recover and go over the footage from the damaged security system, so Danny suggests an old police classic: going door to door for witness statements.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Steve says, and Danny just can’t let that opportunity pass him by, despite the grim situation.

“Yeah, Steve?” he asks. “This has your… seal of approval?”

Chin groans. “Really, brah?”

Danny could swear he sees the corners of Steve’s mouth twitch, ruining his perfect business face for a fraction of a second. 

“Hah!” Danny says, punching him in the arm. “You liked that one. Don’t think I didn’t see your smile. Your lips moved.”

“Why are you watching my lips, Danny? My eyes are up here.” Steve points at his eyes in all seriousness, because he’s an asshole.

“Asshole,” Danny tells him, neatly sidestepping the question he doesn’t want to answer.

Steve just grins at him. Chin looks between them, shakes his head and leaves.

-

4.

The case leads them to a group of drug smugglers. It seems like they were relative amateurs who got spooked and let things get out of hand big time, in the most tragic of ways – the sister was involved, but when she wanted out her two former partners paid her a visit at home, where her brothers tried to defend her and were rewarded by panicked bullets to the head and chest. 

They’ve found a way to set up a meeting with their smugglers-turned-murdering-kidnappers, posing as potential buyers for their wares. The only good thing about the whole disaster of a case is that their criminals are mainlanders with no strong connections in Hawaii, meaning Five-0 can send one of their own in undercover without being made on sight. Steve and Danny argue at HQ for a bit about which of them gets to do it.

“Look,” Steve says eventually, in a tone of voice that signals This Decision Is Final, “I know you’ve done this kind of thing before in Jersey, but in the end this mission means we’re sending a single guy into a potentially dangerous situation, and if this goes south I’d much rather I’m the one getting shot at.”

Danny slaps him on the back maybe a little too hard. “Aw, babe, that would be sweet if it wasn’t so completely crazy.”

“I think it’s both,” Kono says. She’d kept quiet during the actual discussion, working at something on her tablet, but apparently she feels it’s safe to speak up again.

“Thank you,” Steve says, pointedly. Danny considers slapping him again, but he knows and accepts that he’s already lost this fight, so he just waves a hand at him.

“You know what? Alright, sure, you go and seal the deal. You’re especially qualified for that, after all.”

Steve gives him a look that says he knows what Danny just did. “None of my dates have ever complained,” he shoots back, without even batting an eyelash.

“TMI, Steven!” Danny motions furiously, because he has to if Steve says something like that. He’s secretly kind of glad Steve has given him an excuse. “So completely TMI.” 

Kono, that devil woman, leans over the computer table with a wide grin. “Nah, man, the opposite. Tell us more.”

“You wish,” Steve says with a laugh, and Danny is really, really miffed that he’s right. “Let’s get moving. We still need to iron out some details.”

-

5.

Steve gets shot at. Danny can’t even pretend to be surprised, because he can’t remember the last case they had without any flying bullets. He isn’t entirely sure they’ve _ever_ had a case like that, which is very sad.

One of the bad guys goes down when Steve shoots back, Kono roundhouse kicks and cuffs the other one, and they find the kidnapped woman who lost her brothers tied to a chair in the backroom. Then it’s just a matter of finding the cocaine. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, considering their criminals of the week were operating out of yet another of Hawaii’s apparent plethora of abandoned warehouses. There is a very limited number of viable hiding places, so Danny hasn’t even taken ten steps in his search when Chin calls out. 

“Hey guys! I think I found it.”

Danny circles back to the weekend bag Chin dragged out from under a table. He’s zipped it open, and inside are rows of firmly wrapped packages of white powder. They each have a sticky label with a chicken scratch on it declaring them to be _baking powder_.

“It’s not even the right drug to get you baked,” Danny remarks. “Amateurs.”

Steve comes to stand next to Danny, so close their arms almost bump. “Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all. Good find, Chin.”

Kono is the last to arrive. She peers down into the bag with something like disappointment. “This is so bad. Did they really think that was going to work as a cover?”

“I agree,” Danny says, “that’s just seally.”

Kono looks perplexed and Chin elegantly ignores him, but Steve takes the bait. His exasperated face is glorious.

“Really, Danny? Really? Now they’re just getting bad.”

“Aha!” Danny crows. He elbows Steve in victory, which hurts his elbow a little because Steve is still wearing his tac vest. “So you admit my puns were good before.”

“Let me rephrase that,” Steve says, elbowing Danny back. “They’ve always been bad, but now they’re getting terrible.”

“You’re the worst, you know that?”

“I’m having a déjà vu. We’ve had this conversation already.”

“Yeah, but it bears repeating, because it remains true.”

“Come on, Danno, even you have to admit there are things I’m good at.”

“Yeah, like driving me insane. You’re a natural at that.”

“At least you finally admit I can drive.”

“Babe, I know your brain works a little differently from all of ours, but it’s not a compliment if someone calls something you do insane. That is not-”

“Guys!” Chin yells. He hardly ever raises his voice, so it’s enough to break Danny’s focus on Steve. He’s suddenly hyperaware of how close they’ve been standing – he’s pretty sure he could count Steve’s Bambi eyelashes, if he wanted to – but he stays where he is. Moving away now would only draw attention.

“Chin?” Steve prompts.

Chin frowns at them like a tired school teacher. “Listen, why don’t you go home? Kono and I have got this one. HPD is here. You should go have a beer, or something.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asks. “We-”

“You’re killing us, brah,” Kono says.

“Killing you how?” Danny asks. He’s not sure if he should be offended.

Chin sighs. “Maybe just… go home and talk, yeah?”

“Talk?” Steve asks, while Kono is already shooing them outside and in the direction of Danny’s car. They start walking automatically, and she follows them to make sure they keep going.

“Talk, yeah. Maybe talk naked, if it helps.”

Danny means to respond to that, he really does, but somehow Kono has herded them into the car before he gets a chance to. She gives them a cheery wave and fucks off. Danny looks at Steve, who looks back at him, and then shrugs and starts the car.

-

+1.

“So, hey,” Steve says, when they’re finally standing in Steve’s living room after what felt like a very long drive. Chin and Kono had been talking about home, but Steve hadn’t asked Danny where he wanted to go. Not that Danny had even tried to feign unwillingness to follow Steve inside. “That thing Kono said was, uh, interesting.”

“That we should talk?” Danny asks, playing dumb, because he is in the line of fire a lot, okay, but you can be brave and still be a coward, sometimes.

“Yeah.” Steve stares at him. Swallows. Danny follows the bob of his Adam’s apple. “But also that other thing.”

“The naked thing,” Danny says.

It’s not a question. Steve nods anyway.

“Okay,” Danny says, and that’s it, apparently, the starting shot Steve had been waiting for, because in one fluid motion he pulls his shirt over his head in the way only a serial stripper can and also _launches_ into Danny, sending him stumbling a step back and crashing their mouths together with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm, except there is no such thing, in Danny’s humble opinion. Danny’s lip gets bitten and he’s honestly not sure if it’s his fault or Steve’s, but he doesn’t even care because _Steve’s tongue is in his mouth_.

It’s all good, or pretty damn great, or all of the above, until Danny lets his hands wander down Steve’s naked back and grab two handfuls of Steve’s glorious behind. Steve doesn’t do anything to explicitly indicate he’s not on board with that, but he does break their kiss and dodge Danny when he tries to gets his lips back on Steve’s, because he only just got permission to do that and there is no way he’s done yet.

“What?” he asks, bafflement and annoyance fighting for dominance so viciously he can’t even be embarrassed about how hard he’s panting. “Seriously, what, why are you stopping?”

Steve takes a surprisingly long moment to answer. When Danny looks at him, he’s licking his lips, fighting a grin, like he’s having trouble containing his glee. He looks Danny straight in the eye when he finally reveals what’s got him so giddy. “Are you trying to… cop a feel?”

It takes a second to make sense. Just a second, and then Danny doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about Steve’s terrible Steveness. “Is this- Is this revenge? Is this a revenge pun?”

“Ah, so you cop to it?”

“No, I- No, how was that a confession of anything, Steve?”

“That’s a cop-out.”

“Tell me something, please – how long have you secretly been collecting these?”

“A while,” Steve admits, still with that ridiculous grin on his ridiculous face. Danny hates that he’s thoroughly charmed by it.

He sighs. He knows when to admit defeat. “I hate you. Let’s copulate.”

“Big words.”

“I’ll show you what else is big.”

Steve looks like he’s having the time of his life when he turns Danny around by his shoulders and steers him towards the stairs, and presumably the bed at the end of them. “Oh yes, you’re going to be an undercover cop.”

“Copy that.”

Steve’s hands are warm on his shoulders and Steve’s laughter is chasing him up the stairs, and Danny will take a hundred shitty jokes about his profession if it gets him this. Nothing seally about it – except Steve, obviously.

**Author's Note:**

> The alternate title for this was “Don’t seal my heart, seal vous plait”. I'm just saying, things could have been a lot worse.
> 
> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed this, because they're 90% of what fuels me in life. I'm on Tumblr as [@itwoodbeprefect](itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), if you want to come visit me!<3


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